Author: Beenish Ahmed Saraz, Co Author: Laraib Ahmed
Lyallpur Fine Arts Advisory and their Community Heads talk on the art scene – We are Seekers, let’s seek Together
Watering a flower is a reflection of its interest towards its growth and improvement. We are emerging artists residing in different cities and are meeting at one place, Lyallpur Fine Art Advisory.
LFAA represents artists that are enduring a lack of transparency in the current art scene globally with the purpose to provide education in the art business and assist in building sustainable studio practices.
Community Heads are an important pillar of the advisory. Their job as a core and paramount panel comes with the responsibility to build the network of advisory and lay foundations of a transparent art community by reaching out to art students and young artists, finding and connecting new talents, visiting thesis displays, exhibitions and conveying and resolving current issues with other advisory panels.
Tehreem Saleem is a multi-talented visual artist based in Faisalabad, graduated from College of Art and Design, Government College University Faisalabad with the major Textile in 2018.
The universities did not teach artists on how to promote their work and present themselves as an artist, people are depressed and feeling repudiated as they are not promoted due to this inauspicious system so the advisory is trying best to ameliorate art scene, but the debate is why is that so?
Our artists need sincere regards, appreciation and support to share, talk and exhibit their work and we are here to listen and get it done. After graduation, I also faced many rejections from every gallery because my work is not linked to any artist, according to curators and the allergists and many don’t have any dates before 2 years for the emerging artists.
I joined the advisory to help those who need actual help in that crucial stage of their art careers. I was once waiting for someone like me to help and our time will come surely.
Beenish Ahmed is a visual artist residing in Hyderabad and has graduated from National College of Arts, Lahore in 2019 from department of Fine-arts with a major in Painting.
Artists are melancholy, they want knowledge they want to connect and they are facing many obstacles towards this connectivity and constant rejections based on unjust parameters.
In Pakistan, galleries are mostly focusing on commercial art that is already connected to collectors while not showing the artworks of emerging talent. Don’t get us wrong, these established artists and masters have well deserved their spot and their experience is truth in its own right. But what is art? Where are the emerging artists? What’s the value of talent? And most importantly, who will promote young talent then?
To answer the above questions, advisory is a realistic and practical solution; we are pushing to promote talent while not defining what is or is not art and to help young talent to understand art scenes and its norms around the globe.
Rida Iqbal is a visual practitioner currently working and residing in Faisalabad. She is currently pursuing her Textile degree from the institute of Art and Design, Faisalabad.
I feel like it’s a great space for the upcoming artists in our country. Many things are left untold in our art education system and this advisory is making a pathway for the artists who are missing out so much that they need to know in order to promote and exhibit their work.
Salman Qamar is pursuing his bachelor’s degree in department of Fine Arts with major Painting from National College of Arts, Lahore.
I always find it difficult to take emerging artists into confidence and especially the artist who live in areas where there is no or less awareness about art spaces. This is a very encouraging space for artists in cities where there is not much to see or talk regarding arts. It has always been an issue that they don’t have access to channels and art galleries.
Huda Hafeez is a versatile artist belonging to Faisalabad and she is also pursuing her bachelor’s degree in Textile from Institute of Textile and Fashion Design, Faisalabad.
It has become so hard to make people understand what is this advisory and what it’s about. They take time to connect as this is the first advisory in Pakistan. This advisory is something much needed in Pakistan to educate artists and especially our emerging artists in such a supporting and practical manner that our education system has failed. Supporting and helping these artists gives me a special kind of satisfaction, to know that it is worth burning the candle at my end.
These highbrow artists contain the tenacity and ambition to work in their respective fields and manage their academia simultaneously are showing the limitless spirit and mind with this urge to communicate and connect through LFAA, they correspond to the need to represent young talents as they themselves have been through those obstacles and now provide support and opportunities to artists that are in their initial phases of career and are underrepresented.
Their motive is not like the rest, advisory is not only putting efforts in looking and representing artists but also educating them on art business, providing mentor guides and supplementary help to support the artists, thereby introducing strong personalities with a grip on their careers.
Art is not only for the rich but it is about the rich culture. It is a language which expresses one’s immense thoughts and observations of evaluated surroundings. One who has developed their own authentic and unique visual language should be given a space to express it. Increasing opacities in the current scape results in galleries and spaces rarely responding to our young talent which becomes a reason of great despair and resulting in a smaller community as many switch their fields. This further discourages an artist to approach any platform due to a harboring fear of communication and neglect existing because of weak structures and internal hierarchies among our art circle.
Being the part of first Art advisory in Pakistan, community heads are motivated to represent artists who are persistent, patient, original, practicing and punctual. They help young talents to write, talk and ask about art by facilitating debates on various topics and issues which contribute to their mental and spiritual growth as well. These heads inspire to become the strength behind the new emerging careers by connecting these talents to valid channels and exposure at the right time.
Having said all that, if you are a young and an underrepresented artist that have their own fears and obstacles to go through, we are here to inspire you to become the best version of yourself – strong and sustainable without compromising your practice. And there is no other way to say this than by talking to you as artists who understand and stood where you were, perhaps in a way, still standing there but have found inspiration and strength in a community that pulls each other out of the water before drowning. And let’s just say that it is important to grow together. We are seekers, so let’s seek together. The joy of an understanding community is underrated, get connected and you will know better.
